2nd Annual ‘A Show’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2nd Annual A Show celebrates the work of emerging artists and collectives from across the city

CONTACT:
Platform A: Liz Forsberg | liz@artstarts.net | 416-953-0981
Toronto Arts Council: Kerry Swanson | kerry@torontoartscouncil.org| 416 392 6802 x209

June 11th, 2015

TORONTO – Platform A partner organizations Arts for Children and Youth, Art Starts, Jumblies Theatre, and SKETCH and CUE are proud to present the artistic work resulting from 48 grants made possible through City Council’s increased investment to the Toronto Arts Council. The A Show exhibition takes place Thursday, June 18th at SKETCH’s Creative Hub in Artscape Youngplace, and features visual art, live music, literary performances, fashion, video, and community art projects.

The Platform A initiative was launched in 2013 with $1,000 grants awarded to emerging underrepresented, marginalized, and newcomer artists and collectives to develop new projects with professional mentorship and organizational support. A Show features artistic work that engages residents across the city in diverse art forms at a local, grassroots level, and marks the culmination of the second round of funding from the Platform A initiative, which is in its second year of a three-year commitment of over one-million dollars.

“That the Toronto Arts Council has recognized the need to make arts grants more accessible and inclusive to the many diverse artists in our city represents a huge step forward in Toronto’s evolving arts and culture,” says Phyllis Novak, Artistic Director of SKETCH. “A Show is a demonstration of the art that is possible when a major arts institution partners with community-based groups to make funding available on the street-level.”

For a complete list of artists and projects supported, please see: http://platformatoronto.com/micro-grant-recipients-2014-15/

WHO: Platform A
WHAT: A Show
WHEN: Thursday, July 18th, 6 – 11 p.m.
WHERE: SKETCH Creative Hub at Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw St. Lower Level

Platform A is a collaboration between four of Toronto’s leading community arts organizations: Arts for Children and Youth, Art Starts, Jumblies Theatre, and SKETCH with CUE. These organizations have all emerged from grassroots initiatives to become key community builders in Toronto’s arts sector, engaging thousands of children, young people and adults annually through diverse and accessible programming. Each is committed to mentoring and partnering with new practitioners to ensure equitable opportunities for building careers and broadening public experiences in arts and culture. In 2015 $48,000 in funding was disseminated through this initiative. For more information, please visit http://www.platformatoronto.com

About Partner Organizations:

Arts for Children and Youth (AFCY)
Celebrating 20 years, AFCY is an award-winning organization whose mandate is to engage young people living in priority neighbourhoods in high-quality, accessible arts educational programs that are meaningful, relevant and collaboratively developed with community and education partners. AFCY positions arts programs in schools and neighbourhood venues as a means of building community, and empowering marginalized children and youth to reach their full potential as artists and social contributors.
http://www.afcy.ca

Art Starts
Art Starts is an award-winning charity that creates vibrant Toronto neighbourhoods through community-building arts initiatives. They inspire long-term social change in Toronto’s underserved neighbourhoods. Art Starts uses the arts to engage residents, collectively work to overcome challenges and create a shared sense of identity. Their collaborative approach to art-making celebrates communities, nurtures resiliency, cultivates life skills and inspires personal growth.
http://www.artstarts.net

Jumblies Theatre
In operation for over ten years, Jumblies is an inclusive and community-focused inter-disciplinary company offering multi-year residencies, studio training, mentorships, and innovative collaborative projects. Jumblies is an award-winning organization increasingly cited as a pioneering and inspirational example of art that embraces and intertwines aesthetics with social engagement.
http://www.jumbliestheatre.org

SKETCH and CUE
SKETCH is a nationally recognized, award-winning community arts enterprise based in Toronto engaging young people living homeless and on the margins, ages 16-29, coming from across Canada. SKETCH creates equitable opportunities for diverse young people to experience the transformative power of the arts, build leadership in the arts and cultivate environmental and social change through the arts.
http://www.sketch.ca

A collaborative partner of SKETCH, CUE is a radical arts initiative dedicated to supporting new generation artists who live and work on the margins. Since 2008, CUE has disseminated over $220,000 to support the creation of 220 art projects in multiple disciplines.
http://www.cueartprojects.ca

TORONTO ARTS COUNCIL
Toronto Arts Council, an arm’s length body of the City of Toronto, funds artists and arts organizations across the city through its grants programs. In 2013, Toronto City Council approved a funding increase of $4 million to Toronto Arts Council’s grants program.  In 2013, TAC disbursed nearly $14 million in grants to 1014 individuals, collectives, and organizations through its discipline and strategic initiative programs.
http://www.torontoartscouncil.org

Up & Rooted at Toronto City Hall!

On Wed. Jan. 7^th , more than 28 young artists aged 4-15 excitedly travelled from their homes in the Villaways community near Leslie and Sheppard Ave. with their parents downtown to unveil an exhibit of their work in the Rotunda at Toronto City Hall. The exhibit titled Up & Rooted featured a neighbourhood diorama and a collaborative community quilt created by locals kids and youth.

The Up & Rooted diorama is the culmination of months of workshops with residents of Villaways, a Toronto Community Housing (TCH) neighbourhood. The project name alludes to the fact that TCH community will be revitalizing the neighbourhood, by replacing the existing rental housing and adding market units to build a new, vibrant mixed income community on the site in the coming years. The young residents worked with artists Virginia Tran and Douglas Hurst as well as Project Manager Carleen Robinson on visual arts projects that explored the themes of family, home, community and revitalization. The result of these workshops is a large 8ft by 8ft diorama that is both an artistic recreation of what they love about their neighbourhood and a vision for what they would like their neighbourhood to become.

“It was really special because everybody in the neighbourhood helped out” says 12-year old artist Rebekah about the process. “It was really fun because everyone had their own part and we were all sharing. It’s amazing!”

For some of the artists, the project gave them a newfound sense of agency over their neighbourhood. 13-year old Ali remarked “We can change Villaways I guess. It’s easy to change Villaways if you try”.

The Up & Rooted Art Exhibit was made possible though the Platform A Bridging Initiatives to bring the art created as part of a 5-year Art Starts project, front and center to City Hall. Through Platform A, Art Starts was able to take the community artwork into a venue where it could generate conversations among Toronto City Councilors, city staff including those in Arts and Culture Services and even the Mayor himself! The exhibit hoped to shine a spotlight on how the arts can be used to support residents in processing their thoughts and feelings about the displacement and revitalization process. The end result was a spectacular display not only of the community diorama but a neighbourhood quilt in which every member of the community was able to express their thoughts and feeling pulled together in an impressive tapestry that helped to further tell the resident’s story.

“This diorama speaks to the creativity that is embedded in this community” says Carleen Robinson, Project Manager. “We look forward to working with all stakeholders to realize the community’s potential over the next several years”.

For the majority of the Up & Rooted artists, this was their first time visiting City Hall. They had the opportunity to give their local city councillor, Shelley Carroll, a tour of their diorama and, in exchange, Councillor Carroll gave the families a tour of City Hall. An unexpected treat was when Mayor John Tory arrived, spoke too the kids, parents and community members about the project and listened to their stories and experiences.

Up & Rooted is funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the exhibit was made possible through Platform A, a strategic initiative of the Toronto Arts Council.

Art Starts Gets Game Curious!

Art Starts has recently partnered with Hand Eye Society, a Toronto not-for-profit changing the way people think about and interact with video games through a number of innovative initiatives, programs and pop-ups. We will be offering support and mentorship as HES shifts their focus to increased outreach, media literacy and community engagement beyond the downtown core by bringing their ‘play and make’ initiative, Game Curious, to the Glendower neighbourhood. “Art Starts has been doing arts-based community programming for many years, so we’re very fortunate to be able to learn from an organization with so much experience in an area to which we’re relatively new,” says Sagan Yee, Game Curious’ Program Coordinator, on this new, exciting connection.

Game Curious is about ‘exploring the untapped art of video games, for people who don’t necessarily identify as gamers.’ And from speaking with Sagan, it is clear increasing access to games and their potential for storytelling is a significant aspect of the program and she highlights cost of technology and the misconception of video games as being predominantly violent as some of the obstacles to engaging in the medium. According to her, “Game Curious aims to break down these barriers by providing a physical space in which people of different backgrounds can explore a wide variety of titles, ask questions, and eventually learn how to tell their own stories through games.”

Game Curious began last week at our Glendower location and Sagan describes the first session as “lively” with about 15 youth, some as young as 5 years old, coming out to discuss the program and play a variety of games, a couple of the most popular being Scott Pilgrim vs The World and Space Race. The theme for this session was ‘games made or set in Toronto’ and Sagan explains that this was chosen “to get participants thinking about how games can reflect their own environments.” Some of the participants were so intrigued they’ve already begun developing ideas for their own games, sketching characters and brainstorming level designs. It is this natural curiosity that HES seeks to harness and channel to ultimately “encourage more diversity, inclusion, and creativity in the community and industry,” says Sagan.

It has been such a fulfilling opportunity working with and mentoring such a ground-breaking organization like Hand Eye Society, the first video game arts organization in the world, and Art Starts looks forward to the uniquely personal worlds the Glendower youth will discover and create as they get Game Curious this spring.

Micro-grants, Mentorship and Bridging

We’re excited to share with you three short videos: Microgrants, Mentorships and Bridging created by the incredibly talented Monica Gutierrez. These short videos showcase the inspiring wide range of work TAC, AFCY, Jumblies, Sketch/CUE and Art Starts have collaborated on this last year through Platform A

Micro-grants

Mentorship

Bridging

Art Starts Summer Bridging Projects

Urbanvessel: Singing River visits Villaways

Like many other Toronto neighbourhoods, Villaways, a small TCH enclave nestled next to ravine, is undergoing “revitalization” – a multi-year process that will see significant social, demographic and physical changes to their home. While residents are faced with great uncertainty, the difficult challenge of relocating, the sorrow and hope of re-imagining their environment Art Starts is committed to supporting residents through every step of the transition.  One part of the process is to connect in new and different ways to the environment. As part of the Platform A Bridging initiatives that aim to connect city-wide community arts practices, diverse audiences and larger art institutions, we invited Urbanvessel an incredible interdisciplinary arts collective to create a workshop for the Villaways community.

Urbanvessel’s aim is to forge new connections, reflect contemporary life and subvert social assumptions, and is currently developing a new piece called Singing River, a collaborative performance situated on Toronto’s Wonscotonach (Don River) – that runs right by Villaways. Urbanvessel artists weave together images, movement and sound, drawing the audience into an active and heightened relationship with water. Water ceremonies, stories and songs from First Nations and settler cultures intermingle to create a dialogue between communities, reconnecting us to the river. The kids of Villaways were able to create their own clay water dragons and planted them full of local riverine seeds. The workshop was followed by a parade to the water’s edge where the story wove its way into song. A powerful experience for all!

http://urbanvessel.wordpress.com/in-development/singing-river/

 

Glendower at Habari Africa Festival

As part of the Platform A Bridging initiatives that aim to connect city-wide community arts practices, diverse audiences and larger art institutions, members of the Glendower community travelled to the Harbourfront Center to participate in the incredibly vibrant and inspiring activities of the Habari Africa Festival this weekend.

We connected with Nadine McNulty, Artistic Director of the Batuki Music Society and programmer of the festival, a long time member of the Art Starts extended family, to welcome kids and youth who have participated in the Glendower camp: Knowledge, Power and Art an afrocentric learning and art making program. As the Harbourfront says, though it’s impossible to define what exactly is African culture, music, food, film, fashion and art, we revelled in exploring and engaging with the art, sounds and tastes of Africa. Pulga Muchochoma, an established dancer, choreographer and performer and one of Art Starts’ own micro-grant recipients hosted an hour intensive African dance workshop open to all. Glendower enjoyed the rest of the afternoon listening to music, sampling food at the World Cafe, trying their hand at Oware games and Adinkra printmaking – an unforgettable experience for all!

www.harbourfrontcentre.com/summer/habariafrica/

The A Show

You are cordially invited to a celebratory showcase of Platform A grantees, mentorships, and partnerships.

Starting on Tuesday June 3, 2014 at 5:30pm, join us for  3 days of visual & interactive arts, video & live performances guaranteed to move you.

Exhibition Dates & Hours:
Wednesday June 4, Thursday June 5 – Noon to 8:00 pm
Friday June 6, Saturday June 7 – Noon to 6:00 pm

Location:
Jumblies Theatre
The Ground Floor
132 Fort York Blvd. (west of Dan Leckie Way)
For directions go to: http://www.jumbliestheatre.org/directions.html

Light Refreshments Served
For more information contact: info@jumbliestheatre.org, 416 203 8428
Visit our blog for details: http://www.platformatoronto.wordpress.com

Art Starts Microgrant Recipient Profile

A DIFFERENT KIND OF MAP BRINGS A COMMUNITY TOGETHER

Nicole Little is an emerging artist, and a teacher. When she received the Art Starts microgrant award she was determined to see her interactive map-making project through in a classroom, the kind of community she knows all about.

 

 

The Dynamic Map project is a multi-disciplinary participatory project made with a grade 6 classroom from Lawrence Heights Middle School. Students, community members and professional artists are both makers and subjects in this multi-layered piece. No small endeavor, the Dynamic Map will be created through several group workshops and individual art making sessions. The project will culminate in the completion of a large-scale 3D installation of drawings, paintings and small ceramic pieces.

The intent of the project is to represent the community, in its complexities and many dimensions, from the kids’ perspective. This is a map where the streets and underpasses of Lawrence Heights are not shown to scale from a developer’s lense but rather where the laneways and shortcuts that lead home or to school are highlighted. This map will showcase the wild fauna and flora that exists often overlooked right in the schoolyard and the park. This map will be covered with portraits of community members that are important and have an impact – in the kids lives – that is the people they choose to represent their neighbourhood: their parents, teachers, friends.

This project will impact the artist as much as the community she is working with. In Nicole’s own words: “The microgrant has given me an opportunity to change the scale of my work. I tended to produce small, detailed work which relies on colour and heavy layers of time consuming detail. The map will be large so it is very lucky that some of the detail work is being “outsourced” to an amazing grade 6 class!!” And as any community artist knows, the impact of art projects is always a two-way street. Nicole says: “ The project immediately engages Lawrence Heights Middle School students, and I hope my experience as an artist and as a teacher will enrich the student’s year. A portion of the project involves creating portraits of community members. This has the potential to honour community contributors and to showcase the faces of Lawrence Heights. I am looking forward to meeting new people and hearing their stories”.

The many layers of the dynamic map reflect the complexity and inherent interconnected-ness of every single relationship fostered by living in community, making art in community.

Art Starts Bridging Initiative Profile

A SHOOTING, A PLAY, AN EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND THE ART STARTS WAY

The Bridging component of Platform A specifically aims to galvanize connections between under-resourced neighborhoods and well-established arts companies and institutions. At Art Starts we are committed to bridging the gap between communities and professional artists, blurring the lines between “high” art and community-engaged art practices – always building two-way roads. We aim to facilitate artistic collaborations and artist/community pairings in the neighbourhoods we have been working with for years. The Bridge initiatives will take various forms such as partnering with professional companies to perform and facilitate creative workshops in a local basketball court, a TCH communal room or maybe even the local laundromats, to field trips to galleries, theatres, or the symphony – anything is possible! These events will always include a spaces for direct, hands-on interaction between the artists and the audience/community. The intention is to engage diverse and under-represented communities in creating new opportunities and increasing access to arts experiences in innovative and collaborative ways that will both increase audience and membership as well as benefit communities directly. One of the Art Starts bridging initiatives is showcased in Living Toronto Journals’ special issue exploring the theme of BRIDGES.

Read more about our Art Starts Lawrence Heights community’s visit to the Tarragon Theatre in the Fall of 2013

http://livingtorontojournal.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/a-shooting-a-play-an-effort-to-understand/

Art Starts Microgrant Recipient Profile

A PARKDALE SPACE FOR YOUNG WRITERS, ARTISTS AND DREAMERS

The Toronto WordSmiths received a Platform A – Art Starts microgrant and were able to create a free weekly meeting space for youth ages 16 to 29 to come together as a writing community. Working out of the Parkdale Library, the Toronto WordSmiths are committed to creative expression and collective learning. The main focus for this youth-led initiative is to create artistic opportunities within and outside of their community. The group’s commitment to fostering growth and authentic representation is inspiring for all of us who work in the community-engaged arts field.

Based in Paolo Freire’s important work, the Toronto Wordsmiths wanted to create a space where all youth are active agents of their own growth. They recognize the individuality of each person’s experience and moreover the value of each of those stories. The collective aims to create their own opportunities within and through their own community.

What does that look like? In one Wordsmtihs, Jess’ own words: “ On a weekly basis, as a collective, we choose different literary techniques to explore and apply them to a chosen theme – always as a collective. As of late we have been focusing on the creation of the first Toronto WordSmiths zine. We have been taking the work that we have produced since November and putting these pieces through a group editing process. We were also very lucky to have the dub/spoken word poet, Lillian Allen come in with her class from OCAD and do a workshop with us. The workshop was focused on spoken word. It was a very intense session, we wrote tons and learned so much! Recently we also had Lori May come in, who is accomplished on many fronts (novelist/poet/creative non-fiction/mentor). She shared with us some much appreciated wisdom about the literary world, how to network/make connections, etiquette, which publications we should seek out to be published in as youth, what to look for in a mentor”

Growing out of the group called the Toronto Street Writers, the Wordsmiths needed some seed funding and basic resources to make their huge ambition translate to weekly meet ups, where youth would feel comfortable to start connecting and sharing their stories. Each week the collective made up of approximately eight to ten youth approach their work in a holistic way (from stretching to healthy snacks) based in a strong anti-oppression framework. From there each session is built around writing prompts and weekly themes. Jess says: “The Art Starts grant has helped us greatly in our ability to have guests come in to Toronto WordSmiths, without the grant this would not be possible. The grant is also vital to us in producing our zine, otherwise we would have been extremely limited in our ability to fund it. Although it is simple, the grant has helped us to provide food for our members and writing supplies – these two things are also necessary to Toronto Wordsmiths.”

Ultimately, as any collective knows, there is strength in numbers – and the more Toronto Wordsmiths are able to meet and connect, with the space and resources to share their stories, the richer we all are.

Art Starts Microgrant Recipient Profile: Ananna Rafa

Eco-Activism Art Project Upcycles Pop Bottles Into Planters

Ananna Rafa is just in grade 11 but she isn’t – and will never be “just” anything. A wonderfully bright, creative and motivated young person living in the vibrant and diverse Thorncliffe neighbourhood, she is one of the nine talented Art Starts microgrant recipients. Ananna is a visual artist of Bengali descent, who works in a variety of media. She came to Canada three years ago and has since been using her artistic abilities to explore and express her views about the world while continuing to engage with her community through public art projects.

Ananna noticed that in Thorncliffe and Flemingdon there exists a serious litter problem and this is a huge factor in reducing the sense of community pride according to other youth Ananna spoke with. Ananna was compelled to take the lead and be a force of change in her community. With the support of a few friends: Gloria Zhou, Maria Kashif, Idris Ali and Khadija Aziz,  Ananna started rallying support from other students, the staff and faculty in preparation for this awesome project.

The project will see the construction of a green wall, a living sculpture, made up of  up-cycled pop bottles transformed into planters, with plants that will grow year-round. “In doing the project we hope to share a message about how what may appear to be trash can actually be repurposed into something beautiful” Ananna says. The Pop Bottle Planter project hits all the marks with its collaborative, artistic, environmentally minded and conscious approach.

In Ananna’s words: “I think this project would have a tremendous impact on the people who live around Thorncliffe and Flemingdon . It will not only send the message of ending littering and promote recycling, but it will also teach the younger generation about upcycling and DIY culture. It will also introduce the concept of urban farming and the benefits of having plants in an urban environment. When asked about the benefits of the program this was the response from the youth that are running this project, it will allow us to learn about hydroponics, how to maintain and look after plants but also managing grants, money, advertising and ultimately how to successfully lead a large scale art project. This project is just a beginning to all the plans we have to improve and beautify our community. We are very thankful for this micro-grant, which allows the youth of Thorncliffe and Flemingdon to come together to improve our environment and advocate for the problems facing our community.”

And we are very thankful for you, Ananna!